


One More Round

by Rens_Knight



Series: In the Burning of the Light [12]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-09 17:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12893217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: What starts as one more awful night for Talos Drellik, dragging his maddening crewmate Andronikos Revel out of yet another damn cantina, turns into a much more incisive look at what has really been happening, than Talos would have liked.





	One More Round

Music thundered out of the Imperial Reclamation Service Base Aurek cantina on Dromund Fels like an ancient, barbaric Sith ritual.  
  
No, _that_ wasn't quite right, Talos thought to himself--at least the rituals of the Sith had some sort of purpose to them, whether that meant raising the dead, or sending someone to join them. And most of the time...excepting the time Tarssus had described, where the spirit of Lord Ergast had had him drink a chalice of _ketamian_ -laced wine, they generally did _not_ involve getting _violently inebriated_.  
  
It wasn't that Talos had a problem with drinking. He certainly appreciated the pairing of the right drink with the right meal, or sipping slowly on a nice glass of wine at the end of the night while he caught up on his journals of history and archaeology. But there was a stark difference between a quiet glass or two at the most, and deliberately setting out to get smashed off one's speeder.  
  
Wasted. Blitzed. Sloshed. Blotto. Trashed. Out on a bender. DEFCON One. Three sailfins to the solar wind. Toxicologically inconvenienced. _Poodoo_ -faced. Or just plain old-fashioned _karked_ -up.  
  
Whatever one called it, it all boiled down to two things in Talos Drellik's mind: reckless and disgusting.  
  
He hadn't even opened the door to the cantina and he could already tell that the crass music pouring out of the building was the _perfect_ complement to such debauched activity. Was it just him, or had he heard the vile suggestion in the lyrics--as if anything with such a dignified root word ought to be used to describe such doggerel--of plying green Mirialan slave girls with liquor? And this was supposed to be the Imperial Reclamation Service base's official cantina? This was _not_ the well-regulated place that Tarssus had told his crew to expect, Talos thought to himself--not in the slightest.  
  
_Note to self: have a stiff word with the support group commander about exactly what ought not be encouraged on base. And what Dark Lord Imperius had_ especially _better not ever hear that a facility on one of_ his bases _was playing._ It wasn't hard to imagine his younger brother's very justified reaction to the dreadful 'song's' _very_ naked depiction of _slave defilement_. There might not be a penalty for it under the law unless someone happened to abuse another master's property without the owner's leave, but much like his brother, Talos didn't give a rip what the law refused to say about it. It was still completely hideous.  
  
Just to make sure it didn't slip his mind, Talos keyed a reminder into his datapad, as the cantina bouncer gave the slender officer a sidelong glance. Hopefully a nice, worried one, the former archaeologist-soldier thought. Talos wasn't normally one for vengeance, but there was going to be hell to pay for this one.  
  
_And I haven't even started with the reason I actually_ came _here_ , Talos silently groused.  
  
Mercifully, if it could be called that, the music at least switched to something else before the door slid open and subjected Talos to its full volume. Which was absolutely ear-shattering, because apparently when one was drunk, a deafening volume was required to penetrate the alcoholic puddle gathering between the ears. At least the lyrics were _slightly_ more refined than a sequential review of each item of clothing that would be next to wind up on the ground, Talos was forced to admit.  
  
With that, Talos plunged into the sea of people. His carefully-tailored suit stood out in sharp contrast with the array of raunchy, skintight, or revealing outfits, the vast majority of those belonging to women from the nearby town putting themselves on display for the men. _Like deliberately packaging themselves as commodities to go up on the auction block_ , Talos thought to himself with revulsion. _What anyone is supposed to see in that, I have no idea._  
  
It wasn't just the general lack of attraction Talos felt towards the opposite sex. Even if they had been men, he would _still_ have found it crass and unsophisticated to leave nothing to the public imagination like this. There were those that claimed this sort of exhibitionism was a sign of freedom and strength...but if that was so, Talos couldn't see it. Talos wasn't arrogant enough to think himself somehow immune to visual charms. But there was something far more compelling to his eye about someone who took pride enough in himself to treat himself with respect and present himself as Talos' equal, not a half-unpackaged display piece. Someone who respected the gravity of courtship and the lifetime commitment that could follow.  
  
It didn't take Talos long to lock in on his objective. Even if the base cantina hadn't been as _bloody uncivilized_ as this, the risk would still have been there. Talos had seen Andronikos Revel in enough ports to know that. And his younger brother absolutely _did not_ need to deal with this, not on a night like this, of all nights. Not the very night after he had performed the death rite for his father. Sleep would be hard enough in coming without the possibility that he'd soon be getting a most inconvenient drunk-and-disorderly call on one of his crew, one that would not only cost him the time to go bail Andronikos out of the base lockup, but also to threaten the right officials to keep a sordid piece of gossip off the news. Not just because it would prove _embarrassing_ for the Councillor of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, but because that sort of public lack of discipline could lead Tarssus' enemies to suspect weakness in _other_ parts of his powerbase as well, if Tarssus couldn't even keep his own crew in order.  
  
And Andronikos Revel, from the look of it, _very_ much needed keeping in order right about now.  
  
Not only was the former pirate-turned-navigator gyrating wildly on the dance floor, grasping for a very nonplussed-looking, dark-haired woman who was drunkenly trying to stumble her way out of arm's length from Andronikos, but _also_ very unwisely trying to multitask by keeping up with the dance that went with the booming club music-- _whatever_ the hell it was supposed to be--but to top all of _that_ off, Andronikos had his datapad out. Worse, he had his datapad held out in front of him, swaying, yes, but still very clearly aimed with an objective in mind: himself.  
  
"Oh, _no_..." Talos groaned to himself. That could mean only one thing. Maybe he was already too late, though considering the amount of difficulty Andronikos seemed to be having lining up the shot, Talos hoped against hope that he wasn't already too late.  
  
The former archaeologist-soldier might not have been the most adept fighter in his class, but it wasn't as if he hadn't paid attention at all in his Imperial Academy days. This was dangerous and he knew it, but it wasn't the first time he'd had to do this, and secondly, he could already tell at a glance that Andronikos' alcohol-dulled reflexes would be no match this far into it, for Talos' lesser but very much sober and disciplined strength. Talos reached out with his right hand before the inebriated Andronikos had even seen him coming, and clamped down hard on the man's datapad wrist, summoning a voice he'd hardly ever had to use after his transfer to the Imperial Reclamation Service: "Don't you even _think_ about posting that!"  
  
" _Owww...hey!_ " Andronikos half-growled, half-groveled at the same time as the woman he'd been trying--unsuccessfully--to grope gave Talos a grateful look and slipped away into the crowd. "Dammit, Talos!" he slurred. "Whazzup with the dock-block, man?! I was just gettin' somewhere--"  
  
"If you really think 'getting somewhere' was a description of what you were _getting_ ," Talos hissed, hauling an overly pliant Andronikos close enough to where he could get his point across without having to shout over the noise, "then it is a bloody good thing I got here before what you wound up _getting_ was a punch in the face, or thrown in the brig!"  
  
"Huh?" Andronikos muttered. "How've you got a brig when you're not aboard a ship?"  
  
Damn it. The plastered pirate had a point. "Jail, lockup, penitentiary, the nick--whatever you prefer! The _point_ is, you were on a one-way course to a trip there, if you had kept it up with that woman, who was _very_ much _not interested_." _And to think_ , Talos added to himself, _that you had the nerve to call Tarssus out for supposedly giving a dancer the once-over when you have gone_ far _over that line yourself!_  
  
Andronikos processed that for a second. "Oh." Then he started trying to pull away in a different direction this time, a new target clearly in his sights.  
  
That did it. Talos had well and truly had enough. "We are _leaving here_ , Andronikos, _right now_ ," he snapped in a command voice that made several of the other revelers jump for fear that _their_ superiors had just arrived on the scene--that is, until they realized that Talos was _not_ their commanding officers, and they were too soused to care for more than a few seconds. "That is a _direct order_!" He yanked hard with the hand still latched around Andronikos' wrist.  
  
" _Dammit_ , Talos--" Andronikos' feet nearly slid out from under him as the archaeologist-soldier beelined for the exit with his quarry fast in tow. "Not over the _stairs_ \--"  
  
"There are no stairs," Talos mumbled disgustedly, too low for Andronikos to hear amidst the thrumming music and mindless chatter.  
  
Once he had them out the door and out of earshot of the bouncer, the archaeologist-turned-Councillor's-advisor said, "When we get back to the _Fury_ , you are going to give me your datapad and I am going to go through your HoloNet feed for everything you've uploaded in the past four hours, because as if it weren't bad enough on the face of it what a bloody _fool_ you've been making of yourself, and the way you were behaving towards those women, you _cannot_ be posting things to your feed that will shame the Dark Lord!" How Talos hoped nothing had actually been _uploaded_ yet, or had at least been done on a long delay: it didn't matter what sort of privacy settings one used...even with the government filters on the Imperial side of the HoloNet, once something was out there that might damage a Sith Lord someday, it was damned near impossible to scrub completely, or bribe or threaten _everyone_ who might have got themselves in a position to reveal it.  
  
As Talos loaded the increasingly groggy Andronikos into the back of the speeder, his indignation began to cool, at least somewhat. There _was_ still the matter of the damage Andronikos' actions risked causing to Tarssus' image, and the other trouble Andronikos could have caused before Talos collected him. But there was--as there always was in such situations--so much more to it than that.  
  
This _wasn't_ the first time Talos had had to drag Andronikos out of a cantina after the man indulged in far too many. Until now, after the end of Darth Thanaton's _Kaggath_ , no one on Tarssus' crew had dared keep any recreational HoloNet devices with them, lest they be used by the former Dark Councillor's loyalists to track them down. And Lord Kallig had had _far_ too much to deal with--namely, keeping himself and all the rest of them from getting killed and the Empire from being ripped apart from the inside by an angry Sith Lord willing to pay _any_ price to destroy his young rival. So on those occasions when they'd found some semblance of a friendly port to dock in, and Andronikos had gone out for shore leave, it had been Talos Drellik who had gone behind the man and cleaned up the consequences before anyone else could find out.  
  
Including his brother Tarssus.  
  
As Talos rode back towards the landing pad where the _Fury_ rested, that brought him his own very real touch of shame. He'd been keeping this from Tarssus on grounds that the younger man had far too many things to worry about without _this_ sort of annoyance to contend with on top of it all. But that time was over now. He couldn't keep doing this--what else was it doing, but giving Andronikos yet another and yet another opportunity to not just shame someone...but to destroy himself?  
  
It wasn't the first time Talos had had to deal with this sort of thing. He'd had to handle these types of situations more than once during his time in the Imperial Reclamation Service, particularly with soldiers posted to the Service against their will instead of embracing its mission out of a genuine love for the work. Talos had not been one to immediately and mercilessly discharge the struggling soldier as the regulations allowed, but he had also not been one to sit by idly and watch someone continue to spiral downhill, either.  
  
The last time he'd dealt with this had been...on Hoth, in fact, a few months before Tarssus came. Her name had been Idana Myrax, and she had grown increasingly dependent on stress tabs, as the sedative pills were commonly known, to the point where she was endangering herself dealing with the potential hazards one found in the tombs of the Sith. She hadn't been happy with her posting on the ice planet, or with the Reclamation Service in general. Talos had understood that. But not only had she become a danger in the field, it had pained Talos to watch her throw away a mind and a talent that, if properly engaged, could have allowed her to do something genuinely meaningful for the Empire, and for herself, even if it took a year for her service obligation to end. So he'd had to bring Sergeant Myrax into his office and lay it all out very frankly before her, what he knew, what could happen if nothing changed--and what hope there could be if Sergeant Myrax were willing to go with him to the base physician to explain what was going on and arrange for some discreet help.  
  
Now that Thanaton was dead, and they were relatively safe, as far as the crew of a Dark Councillor went, things just could not keep going on the way they had been. Talos would still take care of things on this night--get Andronikos safely back to the ship, get the man's HoloNet feed scrubbed of anything that might compromise them, and keep an eye out for any signs that anything had already leaked. And he _did_ still plan to have that discussion, in the capacity of personal advisor to the Councillor of the Sphere to which the Imperial Reclamation Service reported, as to how out of hand things were being allowed to get at the officers' cantina. But this was the end of it as far as going on with the status quo was concerned.  
  
Talos knew he wasn't going to be able to manage this alone, this time. His relationship with Andronikos was tenuous even at the best of times. He couldn't be sure whether Andronikos remembered some of the tensest exchanges they'd had between the two of them. Whether he would remember the harsh words of tonight in particular. Even though they had been necessary in the moment, Talos had to be honest with himself: the numerous run-ins he and Andronikos had had, and the resentment that had built up inside him over time after repeatedly running out to save Andronikos from himself, meant that things were too damaged where the two of them were concerned, for his word to stand on its own, or even as the primary one.  
  
It was long past time, Talos knew, to go to Tarssus, and let _him_ know what was going on. What had _been_ going on for quite some time now, and that he had been keeping from his younger brother. Tarssus had no idea that Andronikos was indulging in anything more than a harmless night out on the town every once in a while. He had never imagined that granting Andronikos permission for shore leave was giving the man free rein to do _this_. Talos _was_ going to at least wait until they'd got back into space and off Dromund Fels before he confessed to Tarssus about this, because he knew Tarssus was going to be upset, and understandably so, to learn that Talos had been keeping a thing like this, even under the belief that it had been for his good during their darkest days. Even though Andronikos hadn't been doing this every single day, and to the best of Talos' knowledge, had never taken the ship's navigation post drunk...that wasn't going to give Tarssus much comfort. To learn that he'd been talking about Andronikos going out to the cantina--even giving him _suggestions_ on where to go--not realizing that for Andronikos it was like playing with poison. Talos was far, _far_ past any days when he might have feared what the young Sith Lord might do about something that wasn't going his way. No...Tarssus' heresy was just the sort that tended to prevent those sorts of vengeful outbursts. Talos just didn't want to see the hurt and the disappointment in his younger brother's eyes.  
  
But it wasn't fair to Tarssus, it wasn't fair to Talos, and it wasn't even fair to Andronikos anymore, for Talos to let his personal discomfort get in the way of doing what he had to do, to create some chance that things might stop going the way they were going. Talos couldn't hold on to this anymore as if it were solely _his_ responsibility. He knew Andronikos was likely to resent him even more strongly than he already did; even if the man didn't remember everything that happened the next day, he _was_ going to know exactly who ratted him out to 'the boss.' Talos knew better than to expect any sort of rapprochement for a long time--and truth be told, weary as he was of all of this, it might be a while in coming for him as well. But if there was anybody aboard the _Fury_ that Andronikos genuinely seemed to have any respect for, it was the two Force-sensitives, Ashara and Tarssus. And of those two...the only one who stood any meaningful chance was Tarssus.  
  
Talos couldn't imagine the former Jedi being any help; even the regular processes of dealing with one's ordinary emotions were quite poorly taught by their cloistered Jedi Masters...and those same Masters' response to this would probably be the same as it was to any sort of less than perfect behavior: just another inevitable path to the damnation of the Dark Side. Not that Ashara still thought in that unforgiving way--probably never entirely had--but she didn't even have the beginnings of a foundation to handle something like this, other than what Tarssus had been teaching her.  
  
As for Tarssus...it wasn't like he had the sort of training that the military provided its officers in command school in dealing with these kinds of touchy personnel situations--and as Talos had wryly noted before, it wasn't like the Sith tended to have addiction problems, at least not to the sorts of substances that incapacitated them in this way. They tended not to survive that for long. But, young as he was, Tarssus Kallig as a Sith Lord...and _especially_ as one of his sort...had experience regulating his passions, and balancing his powers. With some coaching on the side from Talos, the archaeologist believed his brother would be able to give Andronikos Revel the difficult counsel, and the opportunity of _some_ sort of way forward--that he needed.  
  
By the time Talos arrived at the landing pad and brought the speeder to a stop in front of the _Fury_ , Andronikos' lolling head, bleary eyes, and incoherent mumbling told Talos that Andronikos was not just inebriated, but hovering dangerously close to a state of alcohol poisoning. Damn. He was going to have to order an anti-intoxicant injection from the ship's droid quartermaster, 2V-R8. That would at least keep Andronikos from the worst possible consequences of his dangerous overdose--and it might be from a night of drinking, but that _was_ still what it was: an overdose. It would _not_ , however, do anything for the raging hangover the former pirate was likely to have when he woke up the next morning.  
  
At least Talos felt one small bit of peace within himself on this night as he steered Andronikos back to his quarters, keeping out of the potential paths of any members of the crew other than 2V who might still be awake. And that was that he would actually in good conscience be able to tell 2V that tonight's secret need only be kept for two days, after which Talos would tell Tarssus himself about what had happened.  
  
Once Talos had got Andronikos into his quarters, set him down into an armchair, and administered the anti-intoxicant injection to a slurred, mumbling protest of "...the hell are ya stickin' in me?" the archaeologist finally released a long, exhausted sigh. Then he extricated himself back to his own quarters. He knew he was not going to sleep well for the next couple nights...not with what he had just done, and what he knew he had to do.  
  
But then again, _anything_ had to be better than one more round of this. Even...and _especially_...the truth.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Soundtrack:** ["Shots"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNju8Rgwtg8) ["clean" but still very NSFW] by LMFAO, ["Satisfy"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmk-AP-Q3Rk) and ["Dark Skies"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUaAsJCuyqE) by Nero
> 
>  
> 
>  **Author's Note:** This story initially started out as just a vignette, as nothing more than an annoyed Talos reacting to the situation and the moment. Then he let me know, as author, that there was a lot more to his resentment for that night's situation (not to mention his reaction on the bridge in Part 4 of "Forever Is Who We Are") than he had let on. And that his experience as a military officer, having commanded people in a situation that some--though not him--would have seen as less than ideal, meant he had had to deal very personally with this kind of thing before. Once those realizations hit me, it became very clear that this story was going to be more than just a vignette at the expense of a drunk person doing dumb things.
> 
> One related note: as Talos notes in this situation, problem drinking does not have to occur every night for it to still be a very real and serious problem, as is also confirmed in these helpful articles:
> 
>  
> 
> [8 Things Normal Drinkers Don't Do](http://thesoberschool.com/8-things-normal-drinkers-dont-do/)  
> [Almost Alcoholic: You Don’t Have to be an Alcoholic to Have a Drinking Problem](https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/almost-alcoholic.htm)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, treating a substance abuse problem often requires some difficult introspection on the part of those around the addict, or in this case, the problem drinker. Which leads to this piece, which Talos had likely been told about while he was in command school (and yes, IRL, in the military, officers who command others are taught about these things and do have to deal with them in their units), and that he suddenly came to recognize in himself:
> 
>  
> 
> [7 Signs That You're Enabling an Addict](https://www.foundationsrecoverynetwork.com/7-signs-youre-enabling-addict/)
> 
>  
> 
> And boy, was that last point...the one about resentment...suddenly the key to something a whole lot deeper to what was really going on, than what I'd understood when I first saw it from Tarssus' point of view in "Forever Is Who We Are."


End file.
